


The Big Sibling Book

by DJClawson



Series: Theodore Nelson's Adventures in Sharing a Workspace [18]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Closeted Character, Homophobic Language, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Racial slurs, Recreational Drug Use, The n-word gets used in this story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 15:35:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18501886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/pseuds/DJClawson
Summary: Theo and Brett, through the years.





	The Big Sibling Book

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you to LachesisMeg for her beta work!
> 
> I have some prompts that still need filling but if anyone has any to request, leave them in comments. Enjoy!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: The n-word gets used multiple times in this fic. Don't worry - people get what's coming to them for it. But if you don't want to read about that, please skip this fic.

Age 9

Sirens weren’t supposed to wake Theo up anymore. He hadn’t been sleeping, but the lights were off and he was reading by flashlight because it was a school night, and the noise started to bother him because there were so many sirens and they were so close by. He opened the blinds and saw all of the cop cars parked in front of the store with their lights flashing. So that was why his room was so bright.

“Oh my G-d! Eddie!” his mom said. She probably thought she was being quiet, but it wasn’t a big apartment. “Are you - “ And then she remembered to whisper.

His mother was crying. His door wasn’t close enough, so he snuck around the hallway, and peered around the corner. The lights were on in the living room and his father was standing in the doorway, with a police officer behind him. His father was standing in front of her, his shirt and part of his face covered in blood. It was far too much blood to be from meat in the shop.

“Teddy,” his father said as he spotted him. His father was flustered. He usually remembered not to use Theo’s childhood nickname, which Theo had been aggressive in demanding they discard. “You’re awake.”

“Eddie! Cover yourself!” his mother said, grabbing a towel from the dishrack and tossing it over his chest. “Get cleaned up,” she told him before she turned to Theo. “Your father’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

“He’s not fine. The police are here,” Theo insisted as his mother took him by the shoulders and tried to turn him around. “Why are the police here?”

“The boy’s not stupid,” his father called out from the sink. “He knows something happened. Theo - come here.”

Theo easily wiggled out of his mother’s grasp and ran to his father, who was washing his face and neck.

“I’m fine. It’s not my blood,” his father explained patiently. “There was a robbery at the store. An attempted robbery. Do you remember Officer Mahoney?”

“Ummm.” Theo was in the shop a lot, doing his his homework, but he didn’t always remember all of the cops who came through to get free coffee and say hello to his father.

“He’s black. He’s on the night shift.”

“Oh. Yeah, okay. I know him.”

His father, who was very tall, used to have to bend down to speak to Theo eye-to-eye, but now they were close enough that he didn’t really have to. He just looked down. “He came in to stop the robbery and he was shot.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

His mother made a noise to interrupt his father but he persisted. “No. The EMTs tried to save him, but they couldn’t. He passed away. That’s why there’s so many police. They’re searching for the guy who shot him, and they’re going to catch him. That’s what cops do.”

“Okay.” He was still kind of overwhelmed. There was so much blood. There was already enough in the shop to make him feel sick sometimes. And now it was all over his dad, who said he was fine.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Theo,” his father said. “I promise.”

But it wasn’t true. Everything was okay for them, but not for Officer Mahoney. He was dead. Theo never saw him again, just his coffin at the funeral. They sat in the second row of a gigantic church in Harlem because the crowd was too big for any of the churches the family wanted to use in Hell’s Kitchen, right behind Mrs. Mahoney and her son Brett. Brett was the same age as Foggy, but Foggy was at home with a babysitter because Theo’s mom said he was too young to go to a funeral. The room was filled with police officers and Nelsons, since Theo’s mom called the whole family and said they should come to pay their respects. They followed them to the graveyard, where Theo and Brett both covered their ears as the police fired their guns into the air.

“Theodore,” his mother said as they stood in the receiving line. “I want you to tell Mrs. Mahoney how much you appreciate her husband’s sacrifice, and how sorry you are.”

“Sorry that he’s dead?”

“Yes, but don’t actually say that.”

“Why not?”

“You just don’t. It’s not polite. And shake Brett’s hand.”

Theo did, though Brett just looked at his shoes and didn’t respond to much of anything.

After the funeral, Uncle Tim brought a construction crew to help clean up the shop and replace the damaged glass. They painted over the bullet holes and everything looked like it was back to normal, and on Sunday Theo was painting his latest model plane when his mother came in his room.

“Mrs. Mahoney and Brett are coming over for dinner tonight.”

“Oh.” He wondered why she was telling him. “Okay.”

Foggy ran up from behind and hugged their mother’s legs, and she patted him on the head as she explained, “I want you to be very nice to her and to show Brett your room.”

“Okay.” He didn’t understand why; he didn’t know what someone Foggy’s age could do without messing everything up. Foggy had already drank half his chemistry set.

“They don’t have a lot of family up here,” she continued. “Mrs. Mahoney is from the South. So we’re going to be their family, okay?”

“Are they going to come over every week?”

“If they want to. So I want you to treat Brett like you would treat Franklin, okay?” She looked down at Foggy, who was sucking on his thumb. “Maybe a little bit better than you treat Franklin.”

“Okay, Mom.” He didn’t dare disobey her.

 

Age 12

“Is it true?” Theo said as he burst into Foggy’s room.

Foggy looked up from his train set and said, “Is what true?”

“Did someone in your class call Brett a nigger?”

“You can’t use that word! I’m gonna tell on you!”

“Why are you always telling on me?” Theo said as he pushed his knuckles into Foggy’s head, but not hard enough to really hurt him. “Did someone call Brett  the n-word?”

“Yeah.”

“And what did you do?”

“I told the teacher,” he said. “She said if he did it again, he would get detention.”

Why did Foggy trust teachers so much? “What’s the kid’s name?”

“Um, Mike. He’s a jerk so almost always has detention anyway. Why?”

“You don’t need to know,” he said with more confidence than he felt. “What’s his last name?”

“Henson. Why?”

“Nothing. And stop telling on people!”

His cousin Andy was waiting on the sidewalk for Theo’s return. “Maybe we should get Duncan.”

“We’re not gonna really hurt him, right? Duncan will kick the shit out of him.” His cousin Duncan was three years older than both of them, and always had cigarettes. Theo couldn’t stand them but he tried to put up a brave front when Duncan was around.

“What if he fights back?”

“Dude, he’s a little kid! He can’t fight back.” Not that Theo really wanted to hurt this kid, or was even sure he could. “Let’s go before one of us chickens out.”

“If it’s gonna be somebody, it’s gonna be you.”

“Fuck you!”

“Fuck you!”

They knew the playground where Mike would be - it was near Foggy’s school and all of the grade school kids hung out there as soon as the moms with little kids cleared out. There were usually some adults around, enough to keep away older kids who wanted to smoke and drink, and they had to go to another park for that. Theo didn’t like drinking either - he thought beer tasted like piss and the can someone handed him was always warm. Fortunately older kids rarely wanted to share.

Finding this kid was easy enough. They just had to ask around, and Mike Henson had the good sense to be in the corner away from the adults, where he could pick on kids who were smaller than him. Theo and Andy both had more than a foot on him, and he didn’t put up much front when they approached him.

“You the kid that called Brett Mahoney the n-word?” Theo asked.

“Yeah,” because the kid wasn’t old enough to know he should deny it. “Why? He _is_ a nigger.”

“Well, he’s a member of our family. So if you’re calling him a nigger, you’re calling all of the Nelsons niggers,” Andy explained. “Are you sure you want to do that? There’s a lot of us.”

“N-no,” he poor kid said.

Fuck, Theo was starting to feel bad for him. He knew he would lose his nerve. “You apologize to Brett, and you tell your teacher what you called him,” he said. “And if you call him that again, we will _fuck you up_. Understand?”

“Yes!” the kid almost screamed. “Please don’t hit me!”

Andy wound up for a punch, then didn’t actually do it. “This is your only warning, fag.”

They fled the scene before they could get in trouble because it looked like this kid was definitely about to squeal. They didn’t say anything to anyone about it, of course, and Theo had almost forgot about it until Brett came up to him a week later.

“You don’t have to defend me,” Brett said.

“What? Who said we were defending you?” Theo said. “Does no one know not to tell on people?”

Brett didn’t seem mad. He could be a shy kid, but he had obviously built himself up to this. “I can defend myself.”

“You shouldn’t have to. People shouldn’t call each other bad words,” Theo said, aware of the irony of what he just said. “Look, if someone called Foggy names, and you weren’t there to defend him - and don’t give me that look, I know that you do - I would do something. And if Andy didn’t have my back at school, I’d probably need someone else to help me, because in case you didn’t notice, I’m a huge nerd. That’s what family does. We have each other’s backs.”

“Okay.” Brett looked up at him. “Thank you.”

“Thank me by not telling anyone what we did, okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

 

Age 16

Theo’s first response to the knocking on his door was to ignore it and turn up the music on his walkman. When it continued, he shouted, “Go away! I’m doing my homework!” This was mostly true. It was usually done by now but AP Chemistry _sucked_. “I don’t have any more candy!”

He finally had to unlock the door just to stop it. “Oh. Hey, Brett.” He took his headphones off and swung the door further open. “Sorry about that. My brother’s super annoying.”

“I know,” Brett said as he came in and sat down on Theo’s bed.

Theo looked at the clock. It was Sunday but it was early for dinner. If Brett came over to play with Foggy, he had gotten bored or frustrated. “I do have candy, if you want any,” Theo said. “I’m just not supposed to give it Foggy.”

“Is it vegetable candy?”

“It’s regular candy. So it’s just sugar.” He took out the bag of watermelon-flavored hard candy and tossed it at Brett, who caught it in his lap. “What’s your mom bringing?”

“Peach cobbler. And she said if you won’t have any, your dad should smack you, and that I shouldn’t repeat that. Plus there’s not animals in it.”

“There’s probably egg in it. Egg comes from chickens,” Theo explained. “I might have to eat it.” He didn’t want to give in, but he also didn’t want to upset Mrs. Mahoney, because he would never hear the end of it. And if she thought she could get away with it, she would probably just smack him herself.

Brett did take some candy, but only one piece to stash in his pocket for later. “Did you really see a cow die?”

“Yeah. It was super gross.”

“Did it scream?”

“Cows don’t scream. But - I don’t remember what it did. I fainted.”

“You see blood in the shop all the time.”

“It’s like, a _little_ blood. And it’s watery. It’s just leftover. This was a lot of blood.” And it didn’t make him feel great to talk about it, especially now that he had another Sunday dinner to face down and pretend he wasn’t still hungry after filling up on potatoes and green beans.

“So you’re never going to eat animals again?”

“If I can manage it, yeah.” If he wasn’t so fucking hungry all the time.

 

Age 27

The whole Nelson family would have gone to Brett’s graduation ceremony if Brett hadn’t made it very clear that he was limited to four guests. Foggy had exams, so his seat went to Theo, who sat between Mrs. Mahoney and his parents. It was boiling hot and Theo regretted not smoking a little to take the edge off before going, but he figured showing up to a police academy half-baked was probably a bad idea.

“You look so handsome,” Theo’s mom said to Brett. And he did look good in a uniform.

“Your father would be so proud,” his dad said, pointing out the obvious as he pulled Brett in for a hug. There was still a memorial picture and plaque hanging in the shop with Officer Mahoney in his dress uniform, so they all knew how much the younger Officer Mahoney resembled his father.

Brett said as a kid that he wanted to be a police officer, but kids said a lot of things - Theo wanted to be an astronaut, Foggy wanted to a professional pickle maker - so they didn’t put much stock into it until Brett announced that he was going to study criminal law in college. He’d have to put in his time as a street cop like everybody else, but he probably wouldn’t stay that way for long.

Then again, very few people could guess just by looking at him that Theo had once been an engineer who designed missiles and spacesuits. So there.

“You look good,” Theo told him at the reception. “So what are you going to do now? Drive a desk?”

“Not even. It’s traffic duty and patrols for me,” Brett said. He did sound proud of himself, and he deserved it. “Keeping scum like you off the streets.”

“Harsh! Especially from the guy who was so eager to try my weed.”

“And now I uphold the law.”

“Foggy would say that, too.”

Brett frowned. That was mostly why Theo had say it - to be amused by the look on Brett’s face. “Foggy’s got a lot of ideas,” Brett said.

“What’s the term? Officer of the law?”

“Officer of the court. A term no one else uses for lawyers,” Brett replied. “Especially people planning to focus on criminal defense.”

“Whatever, Officer,” Theo said. “Make us proud. Without destroying Foggy’s career before it gets off the ground.”

Brett sighed and said, “He’ll probably do the same to me.”

 

 

Present Day

“You want something before I lock up the fridge?” Theo called out to Brett, who was sitting at an empty table in the room they used to serve lunch. He came to sit and drink coffee sometimes - rarely, and even more so now that Nelson and Murdock had their offices two walls over. “It’s gonna take me some time to do the bookkeeping, so you can stay, but the kitchen will be closed.”

“I’ll be fine, thanks.” Brett was at his computer, nursing yet another cup of coffee.

“No offense, but don’t you have like, a cop bar to go to?” Theo knew that cops had designated hangouts, however unofficial.

“I can’t let them see me studying for the sergeant exam,” Brett explained. “Some of the guys already think I’ve gone up in rank too fast. They don’t want to be saluting me.”

“Sounds like there are worse problems to have.” Theo knew that Brett made detective around the Punisher trial, and he’d had something to do with Frank Castle since that he didn’t want to be asked about and didn’t want the family to know about, but Theo had a targeted newsfeed just for vigilantes in New York on his phone. “You said you would be on meter duty forever.”

“It seemed like forever,” Brett said. “My eyes are glazing over.” He shut his laptop. “You got anything to drink?”

“Uh, you know we don’t have a liquor license.”

“Then don’t sell it to me.”

Theo got the whiskey out from behind the counter, hidden so Jessica Jones couldn’t find it. He flipped the sign on the front door over to ‘Closed’ and locked it. The place seemed eerily quiet without lawyers yelling from the backroom, but they had been in court all day and they were probably blowing off steam at Josie’s. Paperwork could wait. He poured himself and Brett glasses of whiskey, just enough to be considered drinking.

“You know,” Brett said after a healthy gulp, almost finishing it, “there’s something I want to say to you, and I don’t want you to get offended.”

“Um, okay. That’s not a great start, but I’m game.”

“It’s about Matt. You know I’m a detective, right?”

“Screw you,” Theo said. “You didn’t detect that I was gay all these years.”

“Didn’t have to,” Brett said. “Also, don’t have sex with your dealer. He might be an FBI informant.”

“ _Fuck_ .” Theo leaned back and put his hands over his face. “That was - fuck, that was years ago. And it wasn’t _for_ the weed, for the record. I paid for that shit. I didn’t even ask for a discount.”

“Yeah, well obviously it didn’t matter, legally, because he wasn’t informing on you. It was part of a larger investigation. But he did have to list his buyers on a form and give the locations where he met with them.”

“Did you tell your mom?”

“No. It wasn’t any of her business.” Brett was perfectly serious about that. Calm, cool - that was Brett, almost all of the time. When he wasn’t annoyed at Foggy. “It wasn’t my business either, so I didn’t say anything to anyone. But yeah, I knew. And I know about Matt.”

“Great. Please don’t tell my parents. I don’t want to open that can of worms. It’ll be super weird for everyone.”

“I know _a lot_ of things about Matt,” Brett said, very carefully. “Things you should definitely know about Matt, if you don’t already.”

Theo sat up and took another swig of liquor. “I don’t know what you would be implying, Detective, but trust me, I know _plenty_ about Matt. Generally speaking.”

“You seen him in action?”

“Like, in court?” Theo asked, even though Brett clearly didn’t mean that. “We had the Punisher trial on the TV in the shop.”

“I’ll admit, he’s terrifying. Brutal. Perps act like he isn’t even a real person. They think he’s some kind of demon. Or really the devil,” Brett explained. “He gave me the Castle collar, and I made rank on that. So I owe him. But _you_ should know what you’re dealing with.”

“ _Who_ I’m dealing with,” Theo countered. “Or maybe it’s _whom_? Anyway, Matt’s a person, not a thing, whatever people say about him. And the person you might see - that’s not the person he is all the time. He’s a nice person. He’s considerate. He listens to my bullshit. Even my cat likes him.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Brett insisted. “I’m not trying to insult you. I’m asking because you’re family, and I’m supposed to have your back.”

“Yeah, I know,” Theo said, though he was having trouble wrapping his brain around everything that Brett was saying all at once. “I’m - thanks. But I’m okay. I really am. Matt is - it’s the best relationship I’ve had in years. If it eventually has to end because of other shit I can’t control, or G-d forbid, something happens to him - okay, I’ll deal with that. But I need this _now_.”

“It’s not like I’m a position to give relationship advice,” Brett said. He had a spotty history of bringing home women whom his mother didn’t like, usually because they were white. “So I trust you. But otherwise, I’m here for you. In whatever capacity.”

“Thank you.” He held out his fist, and they bumped. “But please don’t put a cap in Matt’s ass.”

“Why would I? He’s just a lawyer,” Brett said, and they both laughed.

The End


End file.
